barèmevsbrumeConfusable pair

Which to use

“barème” and “brume” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,572
“barème” frequency rank
#14,870
“brume” frequency rank
30442
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barème brume
Definition Recueil de comptes déjà faits à l'avance (certains présentés sous la forme de tableaux), facilitant le travail des comptables. Brouillard avec une visibilité supérieure à un kilomètre, surtout en parlant des brouillards de mer.

Where the eye mixes barème and brume

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. barème runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against brume's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
barème
5 ch
brume

Visual trap between barème and brume

A purely visual mix-up. barème (\ba.ʁɛm\) and brume (\bʁym\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30442, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barème is recorded at frequency rank #15,572, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.ʁɛm\. brume is at rank #14,870, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁym\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 30442, this pair ranks #310,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of barème vs brume

Shared letters: bemr. Private to "barème": aè. Private to "brume": u.

"barème" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "brume" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brume ← bbrume · brmue · brrume · bruem · brumme · burme · rbume

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "barème" for "brume" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ba.ʁɛm\ versus \bʁym\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "barème" or "brume"?
"brume" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,870 in our French list, against #15,572 for "barème". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barème" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brume" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #310,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barème" and "brume" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brume vs bue". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #310,306 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list